Bacteria

Chunks of glacier dug up from Antarctica have revealed a startling cargo, Rutgers University scientists announced yesterday: bacteria that had apparently lain dormant in the ice for up to eight million years. Despite their badly degraded DNA, some of the ancient microbes were able to reproduce after being warmed up in a New Brunswick laboratory, and their genetic code has offered a snapshot of the distant past. The team said its findings, published in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help tackle a wide range of scientific questions, from the threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to the mysteries of life on Mars.

There's something new to worry about at the dinner table: food poisoning from "super salmonella" bacteria, which some scientists suspect have developed through the practice of mixing antibiotics with animal feed. Low levels of antibiotics have been used routinely since 1950 to fatten animals quickly and protect them from herd diseases. This helps keep meat prices low in this country, while allowing the grower to make a profit. But there might be a hidden price. Some scientists say the practice is leading to the evolution of bacteria that are resistant or immune to antibiotics.

Few women are aware that bacteria they commonly harbor in their bodies is the chief cause of life-threatening infection and death in newborns. Or that the devastating infections can be avoided. But that's about to change. Federal authorities last week issued guidelines for screening and treating pregnant women for Group B streptococcus to prevent infection of their babies during delivery. "The infections are so tragic because the pregnancy and delivery can go fine and then, a couple hours after delivery, the babies get very sick," said Anne Schuchat, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who helped develop the guidelines.

Monterey County supervisors have temporarily banned a historic experiment that would release a genetically altered frost-fighting bacteria onto a strawberry patch. State regulators promptly threatened to sue the county for overstepping its authority. The emergency ordinance, passed unanimously by the Monterey Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, prohibits for 45 days the testing of any genetically engineered organisms in the open environment. By the time that moratorium expires, the supervisors said, they plan to have ready a permanent zoning ordinance to regulate, and possibly ban, such tests.

Could your child die after taking a dip in a public pool? Chances of it happening are slim, doctors say, but not impossible considering the deadly and quick way in which the E. coli bacteria works. The key to avoiding a catastrophe like the one in Atlanta is to check the water regularly, according to Louis Jordan, manager of the University City Swim Club on Hanson Street near Locust. "As long as you maintain it and do chlorine readings when you're supposed to, there shouldn't be a problem," he said.

Ocean City yesterday closed all its beaches after a mile-long garbage slick began washing hypodermic needles, medical debris and other trash ashore. Problems with high levels of bacteria continued to plague beaches in three other Cape May County communities - Wildwood, Wildwood Crest and North Wildwood. In Ocean City, Mayor Roy Gillian ordered the city's seven miles of beaches closed at 4:30 p.m. Because of the needles and the medical waste, Gillian said he closed the sand areas as well as the water to avoid a health hazard.

Without quick and decisive action in the battle against emerging infections, diseases we previously thought were on the verge of extinction may rear their ugly heads and provide us a Jurassic Park nightmare. Anyone familiar with the blockbuster movie knows the plot focused on DNA. Much as dinosaurs reemerged in this movie, we have seen new bacteria strains reappear as serious health concerns. Recent media stories have noted the discoveries of new strains of bubonic plague and staphylococcus with limited responsiveness to antibiotics.

For all the antibacterial products and other weapons in the war against germs, even the cleanest of us still carry about 10 bacterial cells for every human cell. Most are harmless or even beneficial. Indeed, some scientists believe that the loss of friendly organisms in recent years could be contributing to rising rates of asthma, acid reflux, obesity, and some cancers. Bacterial colonies are necessary for the digestive and immune systems to work properly, and vice versa, said microbiologist Jeffrey Weiser of the University of Pennsylvania.

Even if you don't drown, there are lots of reasons why swimming in Philly's streams and rivers is a bad idea. You could split your head on a rock, cut your foot on trash, run into a boat's propeller or - most likely - gulp down polluted water that can make you sick. "I hate to be the bad guy and say the kids shouldn't be swimming in the streams on these 95-degree days," said Dr. Caroline Johnson, a medical specialist with the city Health Department, "but that is the reality.

"You probably face a greater health risk eating a char-broiled hamburger - which may have carcinogens from grilling and antibiotic residues from medications fed to the cow - than you face swimming in the ocean at the New Jersey shore. " Dr. Marcia Goldoft New Jersey Health Department "We're allowing the ocean off New York and New Jersey to become a biological monster. " Dr. Dennis Sternberg Save Our Shores "When you visit American city, You will find it very pretty.

As the invisible bugs in hospitals get scarier and more prevalent, hospitals are finding new ways to clean. Doylestown Hospital on Tuesday unveiled its newest high-tech weapon, a machine that zaps everything in a room with ultraviolet light 25,000 times brighter than the sun's. It can penetrate the defenses of Clostridium difficile , wily bacteria that produce spores that can live for weeks and are harder to kill than typical bacteria. C. difficile causes diarrhea and kills 14,000 Americans a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Federal officials warned this week that "nightmare bacteria" - including the deadly superbug that struck a National Institutes of Health facility two years ago - are increasingly resistant to even the strongest antibiotics, posing a growing threat to hospitals and nursing homes nationwide. "It's not often that our scientists come to me and say we have a very serious problem and we need to sound an alarm," Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news conference Tuesday.

The bacteria are gaining on us. That was the gist of a conference last week involving a Nobel Prize-winning chemist and six local scientists at Drexel University, discussing the state of antibiotics research, especially the shortage of new drugs as old diseases keep gaining strength. "If the bugs continue to evolve and we don't develop new compounds . . . I don't want to be dramatic about it, but more people will die," said University of Pennsylvania infectious-disease specialist Harvey Rubin.

Sharks or syringes, forget about it. That would totally ruin a beach vacation.   But people are more placid about poo, apparently. Although a raw-sewage spill prompted authorities to ban swimming at three of the busiest beaches in Ocean City, N.J., earlier this week, sunbathers crowded back into the ocean Tuesday afternoon, after Cape May County health officials declared the currents safe. "Considering that Ocean City is seven miles long, I think it's a little bit overblown," said John Millon, 56, of Havertown, who spent Tuesday on the beach at Third Street.

Circumcision is in the spotlight again: A German court ruling has pitted those who support it for religious and health reasons against those who say boys should have the right to decide for themselves. Lost in the debate is a growing body of recent data showing that circumcision is helping prevent the spread of AIDS in Africa. "The evidence is overwhelming, at least in low- and middle-income countries that have important HIV epidemics," said David Cooper, director of the Kirby Institute in Sydney, Australia's biggest HIV research center.

When Molly Rouse-Terlevich, a Bryn Mawr mother of two, goes to clean the kitchen counter, she reaches for a spray bottle.   In it is a solution of half water, half white vinegar. When she cleans the floor, same stuff. The bathroom, same stuff. She runs vinegar through the dishwasher to reduce the buildup from hard water, and adds it to especially dirty loads of laundry. And she's been at it for several years. "We use it for virtually everything except the cleaning that would require slightly more grit," she said.

Question: My triglyceride level was 419 and my doctor recommended that I take the drug Tricor to lower it. Since I feel fine, do I need to take it? Why is an elevated triglyceride level bad? What raises the triglycerides? Answer: Triglycerides are a part of the total cholesterol in your blood. For years, we weren't quite sure whether or not treating triglycerides made a difference in preventing heart disease. High levels over 400 usually got treated, while numbers between 200 and 400 were treated at the doctor's discretion.

A look into the fossil record suggests that tables may one day be turned on humanity. It probably won't happen the way it did in the original Planet of the Apes , where chimps and gorillas exploit their former exploiters. Instead, our planet could be reclaimed by a more ancient life-form - sulfur-eating bacteria. Oxygen is poison to them, so they live in shadowy places, such as the bottom of the Black Sea. But when the climate gets disturbed, they can come back with a vengeance.

WASHINGTON - Pools of water on the floor and old, hard-to-clean equipment at a Colorado farm's cantaloupe-packing facility were probably to blame for the deadliest outbreak of foodborne illness in 25 years, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. Government investigators found positive samples of listeria bacteria on equipment in the Jensen Farms packing facility and on fruit that had been held there. In a six-page assessment of the conditions at the farm based on investigators' visits in September, the FDA said Jensen Farms had recently purchased used equipment that was corroded, dirty and hard to clean.

Here's some new dietary research, if you have the stomach for it: Your choice of foods may affect the kinds of bugs that live in your intestines. In a study of 98 people and their poop, University of Pennsylvania scientists reported Thursday that a person's long-term diet is connected to what kinds of bacteria live inside the gut. The intestinal tracts of folks who typically ate a high-fat, high-protein diet tended to be dominated by one kind...